Every year, parents and form four candidates   hope to get a good grade after the Kenya certificate of secondary examination (KCSE). This is because of the implied benefits associated with good grades in this country. Janelle Regier [1]. Academic performance is a key concern for educational researchers because failure in the national examinations spells doom for the students whose life becomes uncertain and full of despair. Academic performance determines whether the students will proceed to university or not [2].

However, the key question that we have today is why some students pass with very high grades and proceed to university while others perform poorly. Could entry grade of students completing Kenya Certificate of primary Education be a reason for these differences in performance. KCPE marks at class eight in Kenya determine which kind of school a pupil will be selected, whether national, extra county, county or sub county.

Entry Marks and KCSE Performance in High and Low Performing Schools

Low entry marks can affect student academic performance. A study by Gitaari, Nyaga, Muthaa and Reche [3] in their study of factors contributing to poor performance in public secondary schools in Tharaka South district revealed that some teachers felt that low entry marks at form one level contributed to students’ poor performance in mathematics. Awino and Ayodo   and Kaimenyi [4] also found that low entry behavior by students has affected academic performance in Migori Sub County. Teachers blamed the quality of students joining form one from day one and regarded them as academically low. Ndege [5] descriptive survey design study in Borabu district on secondary schools found out that most students attending day schools attain low marks from their KCPE. In Kenya the top scorers are admitted to national schools, average scorers get admitted to boarding district facilities and finally the remaining join day schools around their homes. Those who find themselves in these schools are likely to have low esteem and doubt their ability to perform well in national examinations. Ndege [5] observed that only a small percentage of 4% of form one entrants of the day secondary schools within Borabu district had an entry mark of between 350 and above. 50% had an entry mark of between 250 and 300.This means more than half are above average while 47% had 250 or below, a clear indication that most day school students within Borabu district joined secondary schools with low entry marks. These low marks have a poor performance implication in their final examinations which attribute to poor academic performance within the district.

Onderi and Makori [6] carried out a study in Nyamira county and found out that there were a number of challenges facing form one selection, they found out that district schools faced steep competitions from national schools as a result they fail to obtain a sufficient number of qualified staff (students with minimum entry requirements) because they select their students last after national schools and county schools have had their share on turn. National schools and county schools select top performing ones leaving bottom performing ones to the district schools. Consequently, district schools end up with students who are considered low academic performers or what has rightly been described as low academic performers or what has been rightly described as academic leftovers or simply poor students.

Waseka and Simatwa [7] carried out a study in Kakamega County, findings were that students who entered form one with high marks were described as “motivated, easier to learn and that they also easily grasped the various concepts in class causing them to score high grades in class and eventually in KCSE. Those with low entry marks on the other hand were said to lack self-esteem and performed below average in class and eventually in KCSE. Waseka and Simatwas [7] study also showed that national and county schools required a higher entry mark on admission and usually performed better in KCSE as compared to sub county schools which admitted students with lower marks at KCPE. These findings are in agreement with those of Nakhanu [8] who established entry behavior of students as a factor affecting syllabus coverage. She observed that students who entered form one with low KCPE marks were found to be slow learners and thus delays coverage of the syllabus. Mobegi [9] similarly identified low entry behavior as a challenge experienced by head teachers in their attempt to provide quality education. In some of the schools they had even performed better than their peers who scored higher marks than them. This could be attributed to being in boarding schools with better learning facilities.

Statement of the Problem

The observed trends of KCSE performances of secondary schools in Mombasa over the years indicate that they have maintained a dismal performance in KCSE as compared to other parts of the country. This poor performance by students denies the community the development opportunities and consequently, the county misses potential earnings from current and future economic activities by its citizens. Many studies have been conducted to assess the relationship between entry marks and academic performance in secondary schools, colleges and universities, [7,10]. Some studies have shown that low entry marks affect academic performance, [3]. On the other hand, Mlambo, [11] argues that there is no significant difference in academic performance among students due to differences in the admission criteria employed. However very few studies have been carried out to determine the relationship between entry marks and academic performance in Mombasa County. This paper seeks to fill this gap.

Purpose of the Paper

The purpose of this paper is to determine if entry marks have an influence on academic performance. Objectives of the Paper:

• To establish the relationship between entry marks and KCSE performance in high performing schools

• To establish the relationship between entry marks and KCSE performance in low performing schools

Questionnaire Return Rates

Respondents were given questionnaires which they filled and returned to the researcher. A total of 656 participants were finally confirmed for this study, of which 28 were school Principals, 202 were teachers while 426 were students. Out of the 291 teachers 52 were from high performing schools (HPS) while 150 were from low performing schools (LPS). Out of the 28 Principals interviewed 10 were from high performing schools while 18 were from low performing schools.  Out of the 426 students 178 were from high performing schools while 248 were from low performing schools. 

Entry Behavior

Entry behavior was measured in terms of the marks a student obtained in the KCPE examination which qualified him or her to join form one.

Minimum Entry Marks in HPS

According to the principals, only two schools had a mean score of above 350 marks as the average entry marks (Table 1) Two other schools had a mean entry marks of between 300 and 349, while the rest six schools accepted students with between 250 and 299 marks.

Table 1: Minimum Entry Marks in HPS

However, it appears that most responding (57.4%) teachers came from the schools with a mean entry mark of between 300 and 349 in KCPE.  The next group of 17(25%) was from schools whose cut-off entry marks were between 250 and 249 in KCPE. Only 4 teachers (5.9%) were from schools whose cut off marks were between 200 and 249 (Table 2). On the other hand, the responses from the students show that only an accumulative 6.7% had entry marks lower than 300 marks in HPS in Mombasa County. Another 30.3% had their entry marks between 300 and 349. The majority (61.2%) of the students in HPS in Mombasa County had entry marks above 350 marks.

Table 2: Minimum Entry Marks in HPS

Minimum Entry Marks in LPS

The results in figure 1 are the responses from the Principals, teachers and students of the LPS in Mombasa expressed as percentages by each item on the cultural component of students’ entry behavior. 

Figure 1: Minimum Form One Ontry Marks in LPS

Although the majorities of the LPS principals (61.1%) and the teachers (52.1) show that the calibre of the students were within the marks range of 200 to 249, the majority of the students (46.4%) thought they had between 250 and 299 marks when they joined the school.  This disparity is possible since some high performing students accepted into HPS may end up in LPS due to inability to pay high boarding fees in HPS. Probably the teachers gave the official cut-off marks while the students captured their real entry marks

From the same results there were sizeable percentages   of both LPS principals (27.8%) and teachers (24.3%) who thought their students were of the range of between 250 and 299.  Very few of the three categories of respondents felt that their students had less than 200 marks (5.6% of principals, 18.8% of teachers and 1.7% of the students) when they joined form one. On the other end of the scales, very few students had 300 marks and above according to the principals with an accumulation of (5.6%+0%= 5.6%).  According to the 4.9 % of the teachers, the entry marks were above 300.    According to the students, the range of 300 to 349 marks scored 21.3% and another 13.4% for above 350 marks. These last two groups of students may have been the transfer cases or second chance students who didn’t proceed to HPS. 

Besides, the fixing of the minimum entry marks does not bar   those with even higher marks from joining LPS, since there is usually no fixed upper limit of entry marks.  The overall mean for all the respondents showed that majority of the LPS students joined form one with   marks ranging from 200 to 249 for both teachers and principals (means 2.3 and 2.2 respectively), but it was slightly higher from the students who gave themselves a mean of 3.3 or a range of between 250 and 299 marks. Generally, the majority of the LPS students are of the calibre of those who scored  below 300 marks at KCPE, but above 200 points at KCPE.

Minimum Entry Marks

According to the principals, only two schools had a mean score of above 350 marks as the average entry marks (Table 1). Two other schools had a mean entry marks of between 300 and 349, while the rest six schools accepted students with between 250 and 299 marks.

However, it appears that most responding (57.4%) teachers came from the schools with a mean entry mark of between 300 and 349 in KCPE.  The next group of 17(25%) was from schools whose cut-off entry marks were between 250 and 249 in KCPE. Only 4 teachers (5.9%) were from schools whose cut off marks were between 200 and 249.

On the other hand, the responses from the students show that only an accumulative 6.7% had entry marks lower than 300 marks in HPS in Mombasa County. Another 30.3% had their entry marks between 300 and 349. The majority (61.2%) of the students in HPS in Mombasa County had entry marks above 350 marks.

Table 3 shows that the mean score in HPS was generally above 7 while that in the LPS, was between 3 and 4 for the five-year period from 2012 to 2016. The number of schools which attained mean grade of C+ and above increased steadily from 7 to 9 between the years 2012 and peaked in 2014. There after the curve took a steep dip annually between 2015 and 2016. This trend is the exact opposite for the LPS between the same years, meaning while the number of schools with C+ those with below C+ decreased and vice versa between the years 2015 and 2016, the total number of schools with candidates KCSE in Mombasa county increased from 32 to 34, at a time when the mean scores were declining. One key outstanding performance trend is the result of 2016. All the schools registered a drastic drop in mean score. In this year, the mean score was 6.60 in HPS and 2.46 in LPS.  This result shows that a majority got the poor grades of D and which was far below the minimum college entry score of C+. 

Table 3: Tabulation of C+ and Above, and C Mean Grade in High and Low Performing Schools

Source: Source MOE Mombasa County, 2017

This drastic change might have been caused by the   stringent examination management protocols introduced by the national government to curb the alleged rampant culture of cheating in KCSE examinations in the previous years. Indeed, the number of cheating cases reduced.

This poor performance in the 2016 examination in Mombasa is also reflected at national level. Nationally, the number of candidates with minimum university entry qualification of mean grade C+ and above was 70,073 (11.38 per cent) in 2017 compared to 88,929 (15.41 per cent) in 2016 (KNEC, 2017).

A plot of the number of schools attaining a mean grade of C+ (HPS) and above, and those whose means fall below C+ (LPS) against the year is shown in figure 2.

Figure 2: KCSE Mean Score Trends for HPS, LPS and Overall, Between 2012- 2016

As Senemoğlu observed; cognitive entry behaviors (such as KCPE) are a form of pre-learning that is required in order to acquire a new content at a subsequent level (such as KCSE). The correlation scores for entry behaviour and performance were high for HPS (r=.792**, =.000), but smaller for LPS(r=.460**, =.000). The correlation coefficients for the overall county performances tell the same story with (r=.633**, =.000). The results of this study have supported the notion that a student who has better entry marks into a secondary school will most likely also perform better than the one who got in with poorer grades.   Many studies investigating the effect of pre-learning (entry behavior) by among others,  Alci, Erden and Baykal,  Dochy, De Ridjt, and Dyck, Hailikari, Nevgi and Kamulainen; Hailikari, Nevgi, and Lindblom- Ylänne and Thompson and Zamboanga concluded that  pre-learning   had a positive and facilitating effect on  learning at the next level. The results of this research reinforce those found by other researchers above. They also have the implication for the principals of these schools that they should stick to the entry marks cut of grades, but if they have to accept any student replacements or transfers, then they can only pick those with high enough KCPE marks.

It can be concluded that HPS start off with form one entrants who have superior entry behavior, which predisposes them to fast learning. This study has contributed to the body of knowledge on entry marks and its relationship with academic performance however more studies can be carried out in other counties in Kenya so as to compare these findings and other findings.

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